One Last Thing About Campfire Legends: Hookman

There's one bit of the game that still baffles me - you know, beyond all of the stuff about the Guardians and Stillwater Sanitorium that never gets resolved in the series - near the end of the game. When Christine is playing a game of pick up sticks to gather kindling, underneath all of the scrap wood she finds this carved into a rock-

That's a man and a woman watching a meteor shower while standing next to a graveyard. There's also one or possibly two children standing nearby. It's strange because this game features people watching a meteor shower near a graveyard. On one level this is just more art representing the same scene as the sliding block puzzle in the crypt, but its unexplained similarity to a scene in the game is a little strange.

Does it mean anything? Probably not, but it obviously stuck with me. So great work one last time, Campfire Legends.

The Confusing Timeline of the Campfire Legends Series!

The Campfire Legends series of hidden objects takes place in two different timelines. Timeline A is the framing device in which Maggie tells a few spooky stories - this is also the single night over which The Last Act, game three in the series, is set. Timeline B takes place over roughly 25 years in the flashbacks to the stories that Maggie is telling. It's not an ov  ercomplicated setup, but the developers manage to confuse the hell out of themselves over the course of the second and third games.

We never get a clear statement of when the first game, 'Hookman', is set, but the costumes-

Would suggest late 50s, perhaps early 60s.

'Babysitter', the second game in the series, is much more concrete in its setting - here's a video feed from a surveillance camera as main character Lisa enters the sinister house where she'll be spending the night.

I can't stress this enough: video cameras have no reason to lie. So that means that this is, in fact, September 9th, 1987. Okay, now let's check out the tapes we find in the workshop below the asylum. The labels say that the backstory - everything from Libby getting murdered on June 1, 1983-

Up until Hookman almost finishes the resurrection serum on April 11, 1985-

Means that the whole thing takes nearly two whole years - during which time you'd think they would notice their daughter not ageing. The in-game timecodes offer a much more compressed timeline, starting with the push down the stairs on September 3rd, 1986-

Up to her treatments going pretty well on November 19th of the same year-

A timespan of under three months - a far more plausible amount of time for a set of parents to not notice that one of their daughters was dead. Then Lisa arrives to babysit 10 months later, and everything goes to hell. So we've got a total timeline on the 'Libby dies and comes briefly back to life' narrative of just a year.

The 1987 timeline seems to track logically, so I'll stick with that one, right? Figure Maggie is five or six years old in the flashbacks, which means the main story is around fifteen years later in 2002, making her 22. That makes perfect sense until we arrive at The Last Act, where things get super-dicey with this entry Reggie finds in Lisa's journal.

Junior Prom? Wouldn't that make Reggie sixteen when Lisa disappeared, and 32 now? That doesn't fit with any other part of the story to a really jarring extent. I know it's a simple error, but how does one that egregious slip by?

The Last Act isn't done with messing up the timeline, though - just when it seems like we can confirm that the game is set in 1987:

Yup, that says Libby was born on February 18th, 1984, which would make her three years old during the events of the game. Also, according to the labels, she wasn't even born yet before she was killed and resurrected. It's all just flat-out insane. For all the quality they brought to their games, these developers are clearly not people who cared to keep a tight timeline.

Also, it's nice to see that, for a complete monster, Maggie sure did a passable job of taking care of her sister's grave. Yes, thorns have wrapped around the headstone, and the rest of the graveyard is a wreck, but those are fresh flowers, a well-maintained eternal flame, and manicured grass.

You stick by your family, I suppose.

Campfire Legends: The Last Act

The Campfire Legends series comes to a close with The Final Act, which came years after the first two titles in the series, explaining the slightly strange way it opens. Much like the last in the series, The Last Act picks up exactly where the last one left off, with Maggie gazing at her friends with sinister intent. When players take control of the game they're put in charge of Reggie, who hasn't gotten over the way her sister Lisa disappeared fifteen years earlier. So naturally she's a little on edge when driving past the mansion where everything went down - then a ghost appears in her path, causing her to crash the car! It's time for another long night at the Stillwater Sanitorium, with this one hopefully wrapping up all the loose ends!

Now, for the hidden object criteria!

Criteria 1: To what degree do the puzzle screens look like a thrift store vomited on my monitor?

Not in the least! Again, the developers have done a great job in dressing the various hidden object screens to look like naturally dilapidated rooms. From a crashed car, to a crumbling study, to an underground lab, all the way to Maggie's cabin, everything is perfectly grounded and realistically cluttered. In an especially nice note, the developers take the players on a journey back through familiar locations from the first two games. Some locations are more successful than others - while the mansion screens are beautiful, it doesn't look like the same location as in Babysitter - I was amazed at how well the revisited cabin from 'The Hookman' turned out. It really did feel like coming back to an old haunt.

Criteria 2: Are the searches justified by the premise/story?

Once again, the superb hidden object design really sells the experience, with the players only ever having to look for specific items to solve specific problems. This is the last Campfire Legends game, so it's important to appreciate this triumph of design while it lasts. Unfortunately, the developers made a huge blunder in the post-game mode - instead of another Haken's Journal mode which lets players try their had at grabbing a variety of items in the HOG locations, The Last Act offers 'Project Stillwater', a disaster of a 'spot the differences' game. It's bad enough that they included this instead of a traditional HOG bonus mode, the fact that the screens are pitch black and lit by a flashlight, forcing players to look for differences in just a twentieth of the screen at a time is inexcusable.

Criteria 3: How well do the various puzzles and object searches meld together to form a coherent whole?

It's another great showing from the Campfire Legends people - the puzzles are, despite the inclusion of a sliding block abomination, a lot of fun, and fit the location and theme quite well. The story is also well up to series standards, with only one strange error on the part of the developers. Even though anyone playing the game should know that Maggie is the villain, since that was the whole point of the last game, the game is oddly coy about revealing her as such. Early in the game Reggie finds Lisa's captivity journal, and in it the babysitter bizarrely refers to her captor as 'it', rather than 'her' or 'Maggie'. The whole thing is structured to protect a reveal that isn't anything close to a secret. Even someone who hasn't played the previous games would immediately know Maggie is the villain, especially since the first thing she does in the game is give the other girls at the campfire mugs of obviously drugged hot chocolate.

It's a strange conceit that hampers the story a little, since it spends a good amount of its running time building to a fait accomplit - nevertheless, it's a solid tale of terror and the brave young woman who alternately flees from and stands up to it. Even the still-terrible firefly-based hint system has been tweaked to be slightly less awful! Now instead of spending beetles to skip puzzles, a skip bar gradually fills, just like in every other HOG! Also, when Reggie runs out of fireflies, an extra one will gradually regenerate in her inventory to help the hopeless. The hint regeneration time is absurdly long, though, more than twice as long as the 'skip puzzle bar' charge-up, once again making me question why the developers hated casual players so intensely.

While The Last Act doesn't function as a satisfying conclusion for the entire series - we're left with plenty of questions from The Hookman - when looked as a continuation of The Babysitter, it's a great resolution. The Babysitter had quite a nasty cliffhanger, and even though I had to wait years for this game to follow up on it, I wasn't disappointed. Whatever problems it may have as a game - hint system, bad bonus material - The Last Act is a great capper for the best trilogy in hidden object gaming.

This is another HOG that absolutely demands to be played - and if you'd like to watch me do just that, head on over to the Youtube video of that happening!

Campfire Legends: The Babysitter

Campfire Legends: The Hookman didn't end on anything close to a cliffhanger - sure, there were unanswered questions about Doctor Haken and his regenerative research, but the only real narrative thrust was blonde girl at the campfire claiming that she has her own spooky story to tell. We never get to hear it, though, as black-haired girl interrupts to reveal that the Hookman story isn't quite over yet, which brings us to maybe the best hidden object game ever. The story follows Lisa, a babysitter in the year 1987, as she's charged with looking after a pair of creepy twin girls for a single night. This shouldn't be a challenge, other than the fact that the house they live in was one part of the notorious Stillwater Asylum where the Guardians ran their terrifying experiments on the unwilling patients. She is obviously in for a long night...

Now, for the hidden object criteria!

Criteria 1: To what degree do the puzzle screens look like a thrift store vomited on my monitor?

Again, not at all. The developers have done an incredible job of building a believable mini-mansion and secret lab. The first area is cluttered, but in a believable, domestic kind of way. Dishes left all over the kitchen, clothes scattered around a bedroom. Everything looks like the maid took a few weeks off, but beyond that, it's all very plausible. The underground lab looks even better - far more cluttered, but obviously the result of decades of neglect. The Hookman has been working so long that tools and devices have just wound up scattered everywhere. Messy as hell, but it works because the types of items left lying around the labs are internally consistent - there aren't any violins or scattered playing cards lying around, for example.

Criteria 2: Are the searches justified by the premise/story?

They are 100% justified, as is the hallmark of the series. This is an especially notable feat, given that the first third of the game is spent just on Lisa's babysitting job. Between fixing broken plates, making hot chocolate, and tracking down stray geckoes, the game does a fantastic job of keeping the setup portion of the game engaging. Things only get better once the horror starts, and Lisa has to assemble machinery and track down mysterious videotapes. That's not all, though - while I can wholeheartedly praise the game's decision to make all of the searches entirely relevant to the plot, the developers clearly understand that sometimes people just want to relax and find some items from a list, so they added a mode for casual enjoyment of the HOG screens. Once the game has been completed players can replay any of the hidden object areas, now armed with a long list of items to locate. It's the best of both worlds!

Criteria 3: How well do the various puzzles and object searches meld together to form a coherent whole?

Fantastically well. The completely logical hidden object scenes are a pleasure to play, and the puzzles fit incredibly well within the world of the game. Are there a few overly elaborate locks here and there? Sure, but they fit well within the horror adventure millieu and never feel like things are being arbitrarily padded out. In addition to the great hidden object and puzzle design, the game's story is a real standout, following Lisa on a harrowing journey into the mind of a madman, all leading to a terrifying conclusion that sets up the third game perfectly.

Campfire Legends: The Babysitter isn't a perfect sequel to Hookman - there are just too many loose ends to be completely satisfying, but taken on its own merits, it's one of the finest hidden object games ever, its success marred only by the decision of the developers to go with a firefly-based hint system, rather than a simple recharging bar. On the upside, it only takes three beetles to skip a puzzle, rather than five, so at least one annoyance was fixed. Especially since there's a much-despised sliding block puzzle just five minutes into the game. Still, this is a hidden object game that's a couple of fixes away from complete perfection, and not many can say that.

I can't recommend this one highly enough - and if you'd like to watch me playthrough the game, just head on over to the Youtube playlist by clicking here!

Campfire Legends: The Hookman

Campfire Legends: The Hookman was my first hidden object game. I bought it as part of a two-pack with its sequel, 'The Babysitter' while waiting for someone to arrive at a Walmart. At the time I didn't even know what a hidden object game was, and picked it up on a whim, expecting some kind of horror-themed interactive fiction. What I found instead was my new favourite genre, in which characters search through messy rooms in order to find the clues necessary to escape tense situations and solve crimes. I was hooked right away by this game's story - the framing device features a group of girls telling stories around the titular campfire, with the action taking place within the story being told.

As for the story itself, it's a classic of the genre - girl goes to a spooky cabin with her boyfriend, they're menaced by a man with a hook for a hand, and they have to take extreme measures to escape him. What separates Campfire Legends from generic versions of this story is what a strong lead character it has, and how well she deals with the obstacles that she comes across. Christine is simply the handiest horror heroine I've ever encountered. Lights out in the cabin? She'll track down fuses! Radio shattered by a madman's claw? She'll jury-rig it with spare parts from a broken television! Car has a flat? She pulls out a jack and a wrench! While it's clear that all of these character traits are determined by the kinds of puzzles that the developers wanted to include, the end result is that Christine winds up being characterized as incredibly competent and self-sufficient, and absolutely never feels like a victim. It's a nice twist in the genre. Her only weakness seems to be her fondness for her incredibly shady boyfriend Patrick, who disappears from the story at key moments, acts super-suspicious, and manages to convince her to head out for a romantic fire by the lake when she already knows that there's a hookman on the loose. Ah, young love.

Now, the HOG judging criteria!

Criteria 1: To what degree do the puzzle screens look like a thrift store vomited on my monitor?

Not by any measure. It a little unfair to grade Campfire Legends games based on these criteria, given that they were developed with these games specifically in mind. Still, I'm already here, so... The environments in Hookman are completely believable because the developers went out of their way to make them completely internally consistent. I've been in garages and sheds as cluttered as the one in the game, and the cabin itself is a mess because a hookman recently trashed it. The developers really went the extra mile to make sure every location makes complete sense while still being enough of a mess to provide for satisfying hidden object searches.

Criteria 2: Are the searches justified by the premise/story?

They are absolutely, 100% justified. Christine is never asked to look for anything she doesn't absolutely need. Sometimes that's rocks to scare a cat, sometimes it's car parts, and sometimes it's pieces of an ornate sliding block puzzle; it's never random dross designed to pad out the running time. Christine has lots of minor obstacles to overcome throughout the game, so there's plenty of searching to be done, but it's never arbitrary or pointless - and I can't stress how far this goes towards pulling players into the game. By never asking Christine to locate five playing cards, a roman numeral, and a series of books, the game creates a grounded sense of place that's so often lacking in other titles.

Criteria 3: How well do the various puzzles and object searches meld together to form a coherent whole?

Better than almost any other HOG. Christine finds herself faced with entirely relatable problems and solves them in completely logical ways. Things can get a little wonky when the occasional puzzle box appears, but by and large everything in this game follows a totally sensible path, which reinforces the characters and situation to the point where I'd go so far as to call it one of the best stories in hidden object gaming.

That's not to say the game is perfect - it's at times crippled by a frustratingly outdated hint system. Rather than offering players the standard refilling bar, The Hookman asks them to track down difficult-to-find 'fireflies', with each one revealing the location of a single missing item, or a clue to its location, if they're not on the correct screen when the firefly is used - that's right, the game doesn't even offer free hints if players are on the wrong screen. It's inexcusable. Even worse is the puzzle skipping - bad at block sliding puzzles? The game will allow the player to skip them - at a cost of five fireflies - which is as many as can be carried at one time. It's a terrible system which mars an otherwise spectacular hidden object game.

I can't recommend this one highly enough - it turned me into a lifelong fan of the genre, and if the fiddly hint system is overlooked, it's the best that hidden object games have to offer.

If you'd like to watch my narrated playthrough of Campfire Legends: The Hookman, just click on the following YouTube link!